A HELICOPTER engineer who swapped his civilian role to join the Royal Marines in Afghanistan has spoken about life on the front line.

Selwyn Hughes, 32, who comes from the Lln peninsula, is a Royal Marine Reservist and last year he was called up to deploy to Helmand Province with 3 Commando Brigade Royal Marines.

That meant leaving his job and his family in Southampton, where Selwyn is currently based, to begin intensive pre-deployment training ahead of the six-month tour.

In April, Lance Corporal Hughes arrived in Nad-e Ali (North) with the other members of 42 Commando Royal Marines. Since then, he’s been working as part of a Fire Support Troop attached to J Company, 42 Cdo.

“An FST is meant to provide fire support to troops on the ground, should they require it during a contact.” he said.

“However, we’ve been very lucky and most of this tour has been spent patrolling with Afghan police and meeting local people rather than fighting insurgents.

“That shows how much security has improved in the area,” he said.

Despite taking part in exercises in places like the Falklands and Norway, this is the first time that Selwyn has deployed on operations.

“I’ve been in the RMR nine years and on average I spend one weekend a month with the Marines and a longer period of two weeks just once a year,” he said.

“With the PDT and tour, this has been very different but thankfully, my family, friends and even my employers have been great and very supportive. My bosses have even been sending me parcels.”

Back in Southampton, Selwyn is an engineer for Lockheed Martin and mostly works on Merlin helicopters. He admits that going from building and fixing them to flying in them has been a change.

“It’s been really useful though, to learn more about how they are used and the conditions they have to operate in.

“Because the Troop know I’m an engineer, when things go wrong, they think I will know how to fix it. But it’s vastly different handling a machine gun to a helicopter part.”

LCpl Hughes is due to return to the UK in October. He’s looking forward to spending time with his girlfriend Marie-Lisa and the rest of the family, who live on Lln before returning to his job in Southampton.